1. Field
Embodiments of the invention generally related to the field of managing user credentials and, more particularly, to systems and methods for securely caching user credentials to access shared, secure resources for subsequent reuse.
2. Related Art
When accessing a shared, secure resource (such as, for example, a database), users must provide credentials (such as a username and password) verifying that they are authorized to access the resource. When users write source code to programmatically access the shared resources, they have traditionally embedded these credentials directly in the source code. However, with increased sharing of source code, this can result in a second user unintentionally accessing the shared resource using the first user's credentials, thereby preventing proper accounting and logging. Furthermore, the second user may be able to recover the first user's (supposedly secret) credentials by looking at the source code and, as a result, be able to impersonate the first user. As such, there is a need for a credential management system that maintains the convenience of credentials embedded directly into source code without compromising security when that source code is shared.